Smart insights: Media and Entertainment

The media and entertainment industry is experiencing rapid transformation. This offers significant opportunities for those broadcasters, publishers, content advertising agencies, and content and digital platform owners who can understand the impact of this change.

Today, an audience of many is becoming an audience of one, forcing the media industry to become more data-driven. Media and digital groups need to understand changing patterns of consumption, including what programs and content are viewed across digital and traditional channels, as well as other content sources.

Our media and entertainment research experts provide insight into what content is being consumed on which channels and devices, and why. We convert big cross-media data into smart, relevant research insights by using our unrivaled analytical, data science and technological expertise to integrate and interpret multiple data sets.

GfK’s own unique data sets include proprietary audience, consumer and retail data (for example Video on Demand (VOD), DVDs, music, books, video games and consoles). This allows us to measure media consumption, advertising efficiency and content appeal. By capturing, analyzing and translating media consumption across channels, platforms and devices, we help you build and execute winning business strategies.

Providing comprehensive product information for a hi-fi publication

Situation

Our client publishes a magazine for buyers and lovers of home audiovisual systems. In its move toward digital publishing, it wanted to keep its website readers engaged by providing technical specifications for most products in its listings. The company also wanted to minimize the costs and resources required to gather and manage the content, preferring that its staff focus on core publishing activities.

Approach

We provided the magazine with a subscription to our authoritative product catalog data. This gives the organization detailed, accurate and standardized technical specifications, product images and marketing text covering most audiovisual products in the market. Our product data is updated daily and is built on data drawn directly from manufacturers and distributors.

Outcome

The publication now offers its readers up-to-date, accurate and detailed product information alongside its editorial reviews. This adds value for readers and entrenches the publication’s place as the most comprehensive source of information about home entertainment systems.

Our catalog:

allows the client to easily offer product listings without the costs of capturing the data manually

enables the publisher to focus on its core business even as it builds out new online services for its readers

Cross-device usage study optimizes campaign planning

Facebook asked us to explore how consumers use computing devices and how they switch between them for different tasks during the day.

Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.

Situation

Facebook wanted to explore how people use different devices for different tasks during the day and how they switch between them. This information could help its advertisers target customers with greater precision.

Approach

We combined a quantitative online survey with qualitative in-depth analysis to understand consumers’ behavior, attitudes and opinions about the devices they use to access online content and services. We used geographical location tracking to analyze which activities they were most likely to do while away from their homes.

Outcome

We discovered that almost half of the adults in the UK and the US sometimes begin an activity on one device and finish it on another. This suggests that marketers must reach their audiences across all platforms with a consistent brand experience. With single log-in sites like Facebook, they can avoid sending the same messages to prospective customers on their different devices.

The research highlighted the most important reasons for people switching from one device to another: comfort and convenience; urgency; the time it takes to complete a task; security and privacy; and the complexity of the information the user needs to input to complete the task. Actions associated with a purchase journey frequently trigger a consumer’s decision to switch devices.

Connecting the dots between digital and traditional media

We investigated the role of social media chatter in generating awareness and readership of Vanity Fair’s Caitlyn Jenner issue.

Vanity Fair is an influential and iconic magazine published by Condé Nast.

Situation

Most media planners crave insight and data about how digital and traditional media can work together. The much talked about issue with Caitlyn Jenner on the cover offered us a perfect opportunity to explore this topic. We wanted to investigate what impact, if any, the social media buzz can have on the readership of the July issue in its traditional printed format.

Approach

Over a nine-week period, we surveyed 1,798 adults online who said they had read the July issue of Vanity Fair.

Outcome

Four in ten adults who read the magazine first heard about the Jenner cover on social media

40% of adults (ages 18+) who read the July issue had not read Vanity Fair in the previous 12 months

Nearly half (47%) of those readers were aged 18 and 34, indicating that the coveted millennials do read print magazines, contrary to the conventional wisdom

The big challenge for publishers is generating awareness among these younger readers – and it looks like social media can help with this

Optimizing TV content for a demanding audience

31.01.2016

Our research helped this TV network shape its new television show featuring a Brazilian icon.

Situation

A broadcaster needed information about how viewers would respond to a popular entertainer’s return to the airwaves after a short absence. After the launch of the program, the company wanted to track the audience’s response to its format and content.

Approach

We explored social media conversations to determine which elements viewers might value in the show, and how these aligned with the host and the network. A subsequent quantitative study gauged the target audience’s intention of watching the program.

After the launch, we tracked viewers’ behavior and opinions by integrating social media insights with audience data from the broadcaster and data from our online panel.

Outcome

We found that Brazilians were receptive to a new show because television program options during the evening time slot were limited.

After the launch, we tracked user-generated content on social networks to see what elements of the show were resonating with the audience. This information helped producers strengthen the show’s content.

Our advice also helped the commercial team to target sponsors with brands that would be a good match for the profile of the program and its audience.

When Netflix released Stranger Things mid-way through July 2016, few people would have predicted the scale of the show’s success. Within its relatively short life span, Stranger Things (a series that is part of the ever expanding list of Netflix originals) has been celebrated by critics and Netflix users around the globe, by bringing a (perhaps, up until its release, slightly less fashionable) sci-fi TV format to TV screens in 2016, without losing any of the charm that people associate with the classics of that genre.
Many commentators have speculated that the show would appeal to those who love the sci-fi classics of the 80s, as well as introducing the genre to new audiences, so we decided to look at our SVOD tracker data to see who exactly is watching this show.

Who is watching Stranger Things?

Firstly, let’s look at the profile of those watching the show:
Compared to all Netflix users, the Stranger Things audience tends to be younger (they are more likely to be in living in a household with parents and other siblings, but less likely to have children around) and the appeal to both genders is more evenly balanced compared to other shows.
Looking at age, 65% of those watching Stranger Things were 18-34. In fact, Stranger Things has one of the youngest audiences compared to any other major Netflix Original (with the exception of Making a Murderer, which has similar gender and age splits). This could be influenced by the subject matter of the two shows (sci-fi vs politics) but also perhaps because Stranger Things is a less familiar (and in a way, newer) format in today’s TV landscape, which could have triggered interest amongst younger users.
It should be noted that these younger audiences are also more likely to consume video content on connected devices other than the TV screen.

How was it watched after release?

After being released on July 15th 2016, Stranger Things became a hit almost overnight. Even though it was only available for half of the month, it was the 3rd most streamed title in our SVOD tracker in July ’16, moving up to become the 2nd most streamed title in August ‘16. In September, the show was still the 2nd most streamed title, only ranking behind Narcos, which had released the 2nd season of the series at the beginning of the month. The release format that Netflix uses, releasing an entire season’s worth of episodes at once, is highly conducive to binge watching.
Among those that binge watch shows, Stranger Things has the highest proportion of people streaming 4+ episodes, proving that people have been bingeing heavily on this series in the first weeks of its release.

Are people enjoying watching Stranger Things?

When asked to rate the program on a scale of 1 to 10, in terms of viewing satisfaction, Stranger Things (with a score of 9.0) delivered slightly better content ratings than other shows on Netflix (whose average score is 8.5). However, it is worth noting that Narcos and Making a Murderer also scored a 9.0 average content rating, which shows that Stranger Things is in-line with other recent Netflix Original releases on this measure (the average content rating for Netflix originals is 8.8). Could they be listening to feedback from their audience to make more enjoyable programs?
Stranger Things has been a success for Netflix – the data in our SVOD tracker shows this, but the announcement that Netflix have already commissioned a second series is clear evidence that this is true. In my opinion though, the key success of this show was that a higher proportion of younger users (16-34s) seem to be engaged with this title.
If Netflix is to continue successfully expanding globally, it will need to make sure that it retains the attention of this audience, especially in a market where new video services are launching every day on a variety of devices, and vast sums of cash are invested into original content to try and capture market share. Having said that, if Netflix keeps successfully producing new program formats (or reviving old favorites), then they have a good chance at cementing their position at the top of the SVOD market even further.

Media consumption behavior has become increasingly fragmented across channels and devices, moreover marketers need to respect local characteristics of their markets. As stated in our last blog entry in June we investigated the crossmedia landscape of four markets. The result was four markets, four different stories. While in Indonesia mobile has become default, 80% of page impressions in Brazil happen on desktop screens.
To forge effective marketing activities, we need to step back and take a closer look on the core element of communications: the target audience. Industry and research alike spend significant efforts to segment and survey consumers effectively. Psychographics, lifestyles and other attribution factors such as attitudes, purchases or online behavior need to be considered in order to assure that messages reach the right audience. But let’s take one step back for the moment and focus on the core data layer of each target audience: sociodemographics.
Sociodemographics splits have received quite a bit of bad press recently. While much of the critique holds true that marketers need to think further than gender, age and household income, we should not be tempted to disregard those as of less value. Media consumption is still heavily depending on sociodemographic parameters – Let’s take a closer look at age cohorts as an example.

Generation gap of online usage?

Much has been discussed around the role of digital in the life of Millennials – Those individuals who have spent their childhood or teen years in the nineties. Within this time of their lives they have witnessed the rise of online, e-commerce and mobile and therefore are the age cohort more accustomed to digital media than their parent generation. But how do they compare to those who have been exposed to digital technology from their early childhood on, so those aged 14 to 24 years today? Are they really the proclaimed digital natives?

Post-Millennial realities: Close up Social Media

Social networking has become part of everyday life. But are there any differences on how Gen Z uses social media compared to Millennials? A closer look at the German market reveals similarities at first glimpse – the top three social media services are the very same among both age groups: Facebook, Instagram and Twitter rule the scene.
While Facebook has a slightly higher reach among Millennials, the reach of Instagram and Twitter more than doubles among those aged 14 to 24 today. Around 50% of young individuals among the online population use Instagram and Twitter. But reach is only one indicator for the popularity of certain online services. Even more revealing are the figures for duration, the average time a unique user engages with each service in one month’s time. Compared to the millennial generation, the younger cohort spends almost triple the time on Instagram and Twitter. Together with their time they spend on Facebook, this adds up to over 14 hours of social media consumption per month on average.
A further drill down into these figures reveals in addition: while Facebook is used almost evenly among females and males, Twitter has a higher share of male users (69%) compared to females in the Gen Z age cohorts. The same trend is, while less striking, also to be observed among Instagram users – 55% are male.

Social media usage in emerging markets: Gen Z on the rise

But how about youths in other markets – maybe the high involvement of Gen Z on social media is purely a phenomenon among mature online markets such as Germany. Let’s put the spotlight on two exemplary markets, Brazil and Turkey. Both markets have a similar degree of online maturity; on the other hand they are culturally worlds apart. When it comes to social media usage among youths however, both markets show a similar pattern to Germany – Facebook, Instagram and Twitter dominate the scene.
While in Brazil Facebook is nearly ubiquitous, it’s again Instagram and Twitter with the higher reach among the younger cohort compared to Millennials. The photo sharing service app also reaches nearly ¾ of Gen Z in Turkey, while the presence of Facebook and Twitter are similar among ages.

Leverage subgroup insights for media planning

As we have clearly seen from the above example on social media usage, it would be neglectful to disregard sociodemographics, in this case age and gender. Especially among the younger age groups, online behavior tends to vary profoundly from other age cohorts – even compared to the generally digital savvy Millennials. Just look at the massive success of Pokémon Go among youths this summer – 42% of Gen Z was using the game app while only 25% of Millennials were out in the streets catching Pikachu.
As programmatic advertising is becoming the normative element in online marketing, advertisers and inventory owners alike need to put emphasis on clean and robust data for efficient targeting. The same holds true for successful campaign effectiveness measurement, ROI calculations and CRM database enrichment.
Deep drills into sociodemographics are just the starting point of getting familiar with your audiences towards crossmedia and crossdevice usage. The above case study on social media usage among Gen Z vs. Millennials is fully based on data provided by the GfK Crossmedia Visualizer. This cutting edge tool offers up to date, clear and deep insights to all relevant indicators of online usage across and by devices (PC, smartphone, tablet). Moreover the internet usage data is linked to unique users’ consumer profiles, including all relevant sociodemographic data and further profiling attributes such as media usage, TV consumption and lifestyles.To share your thoughts, please email ondrej.szabo@gfk.com.

Brands are under pressure to develop emotional connections and relationships with consumers and business decision makers. Brands need to respond in-the-moment, to enrich the customer experience – and develop strategies that influence ”moments of truth” throughout individual brand journeys.

When consumers shop, search, communicate, gather information and engage with companies or brands online, they behave differently depending on which device or screen they are using. They expect a consistent experience regardless of the channel or device they are using.

Our geomarketing solutions and consultancy provide our clients with smart insights into location-specific factors that impact the success of business sites, shops, sales territories, target groups, as well as chain store and distribution networks.

Retailers and manufacturers are under pressure to develop products and services that maximize sales and profit and to keep customers coming back.

Success relies on having the most up-to-date sales data, combined with robust analysis to understand which products and services are performing well in the market – and which are not. With this information, clients can set clear strategies for commercial growth and increase return on investment.

Digital continues to open up new paths to purchase, changing how and where people shop. More and more data becomes available every day, as shoppers embrace multi-channel brand experiences.

To stay competitive in this big data, multi-channel environment, businesses need to identify and leverage the most relevant data along the entire path to purchase. With this, companies can optimize each step of the shopper journey.

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